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Hardware

3D DRAM Spec Published 114

Posted by Soulskill from the set-in-3D-stone dept.
Lucas123 writes "The three largest memory makers announced the final specifications for three-dimensional DRAM, which is aimed at increasing performance for networking and high performance computing markets. Micron, Samsung and Hynix are leading the technology development efforts backed by the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMC). The Hybrid Memory Cube will stack multiple volatile memory dies on top of a DRAM controller. The result is a DRAM chip that has an aggregate bandwidth of 160GB/s, 15 times more throughput as standard DRAMs, while also reducing power by 70%. 'Basically, the beauty of it is that it gets rid of all the issues that were keeping DDR3 and DDR4 from going as fast as they could,' said Jim Handy, director of research firm Objective Analysis. The first versions of the Hybrid Memory Cube, due out in the second half of 2013, will deliver 2GB and 4GB of memory."
Power

Nuclear Power Prevents More Deaths Than It Causes 599

Posted by Soulskill from the also-conducive-for-uninformed-panic dept.
MTorrice writes "NASA researchers have compared nuclear power to fossil fuel energy sources in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution-related deaths. Using nuclear power in place of coal and gas power has prevented some 1.8 million deaths globally over the past four decades and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes their study. The pair also found that nuclear energy prevents emissions of huge quantities of greenhouse gases. These estimates help make the case that policymakers should continue to rely on and expand nuclear power in place of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change, the authors say."
Advertising

Google Glass and Surveillance Culture 318

Posted by timothy from the looking-sharp dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "Tech journalist Milo Yiannopoulos asks the question lurking in everyone's mind about Google Glass. 'It's an audacious product for a company no one trusts to behave responsibly with our data: a pair of glasses that can monitor and record the world around you,' he writes. 'But if Glass becomes as ubiquitous as the iPhone, are we truly to believe that Google will not attempt to abuse that remarkable power?' With each new eyebrow-raising court judgment and federal fine levied against Google, he adds, 'it becomes ever more clear that this is a company hell-bent on innovating first and asking questions later, if ever. And its vision, shared with other California technology companies, is of corporate America redefining societal privacy norms in the service of advertising companies and their clients.' He feels that Google will eventually end up in some sort of court battle over Google Glass and privacy. Do you agree? Does Google Glass deserve extra scrutiny before it hits the market?"
Debian

Valve Starts Publishing Packages For Its Own Linux Distribution 310

Posted by timothy from the ready-for-the-console-at-least dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In preparation for the "Steam Box" game console that will make necessary their own Linux-based software platform, Valve developers have started publishing Debian packages for their platform which looks like their first-generation operating system will be derived from Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. So far the packages being published include a new "Plymouth" boot splash screen as the operating system loads, a Steam desktop wallpaper, auto-updating system scripts, and experimental NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers."
GUI

Alan Kay Says iPad Betrays Xerox PARC Vision 387

Posted by timothy from the and-so-it-goes dept.
harrymcc writes "Over at TIME.com, we've published David Greelish's interview with Alan Kay, the famously quotable visionary whose Dynabook proposal has provided much of the inspiration for advances in mobile computing for over 40 years now. Kay talks about his work, laments that the computer has failed to live up to its potential as an educational tool, and says that the iPad betrays the vision that he and others created at Xerox PARC and elsewhere in the 1970s."
Graphics

NVIDIA Launches GeForce 700M Mobile GPUs With Improved Power Management 35

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-with-fewer-burns dept.
MojoKid writes "Every year, AMD and NVIDIA re-brand their GPU product lines, regardless of whether the underlying hardware has changed. This annual maneuver is a sop to OEMs, who like yearly refreshes and higher numbers. The big introduction NVIDIA is making this year is what it calls GPU Boost 2.0. When NVIDIA launched the GTX Titan in February, it discussed a new iteration of GPU Boost technology that measured GPU temperature rather than estimating TDP. This new approach gave NVIDIA finer-grained control over clock speeds and thermal thresholds, thereby allowing for better dynamic overclocking. That technology is coming to the GeForce 700M mobile family. In notebooks, GPU Boost 2.0 is a combination of thermal and application monitoring. GPU Boost 2.0 is designed to reflect an important fact of 3D gaming — no two applications use the same amount of power. The variance can be significant, even within the same game. It's therefore possible for the GPU to adjust clocks dynamically in order to maximize frame rates. Put the two together, and NVIDIA believes it can substantially improve FPS speeds without compromising thermals or electrical safe operating margins."
Hardware

Scientists Create World's First 3D-Printed 3D Printer 71

Posted by samzenpus from the matryoshka-machines dept.
MikeChino writes "Researchers at Germany's Doppelbock University just opened the door to the future of rapid prototyping technology by developing the world's first 3D-printed 3D printer. Dubbed the Ecophage, the duplicitous device is capable of using readily available materials to create copies of itself – albeit at a slightly smaller scale. Best of all, it's outfitted with a built-in material re-processor that can convert virtually any carbon-based substance into filament for 3d-printing."
IT

Raspberry Pi Goes On Sale In US, Sells Out 75

Posted by samzenpus from the all-gone dept.
hypnosec writes "Easter has brought some good news for Raspberry Pi fans in the US as the $25 Model A of the credit card sized computer is now available in the United States. Texas based Allied Electronics is the first local retailer selling the Raspberry Pi in the U.S. and has been selling the Pi through its online store. (There were companies selling the Raspberry Pi over eBay to U.S. users for a higher price tag earlier.) The Model A has sold out completely and as of this writing there is zero availability."
Data Storage

Happy World Backup Day 154

Posted by samzenpus from the celebrate-often dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Easter isn't the only thing some people are celebrating today. Today is also World Backup Day. What steps have you taken to be able to resurrect your data, instead of having it go to eternal oblivion?"
Novell

NetWare 3.12 Server Taken Down After 16 Years of Continuous Duty 187

Posted by samzenpus from the served-us-well dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica's Peter Bright reports on a Netware 3.12 server that has been decommissioned after over 16 years of continuous operation. The plug was pulled when noise from the server's hard drives become intolerable. From the article: 'It's September 23, 1996. It's a Monday. The Macarena is pumping out of the office radio, mid-way through its 14 week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, doing little to improve the usual Monday gloom...Sixteen and a half years later, INTEL's hard disks—a pair of full height 5.25 inch 800 MB Quantum SCSI devices—are making some disconcerting noises from their bearings, and you're tired of the complaints. It's time to turn off the old warhorse.'"
Input Devices

New Camera Sensor Filter Allows Twice As Much Light 170

Posted by Soulskill from the what-a-bright-idea dept.
bugnuts writes "Nearly all modern DSLRs use a Bayer filter to determine colors, which filters red, two greens, and a blue for each block of 4 pixels. As a result of the filtering, the pixels don't receive all the light and the pixel values must be multiplied by predetermined values (which also multiplies the noise) to normalize the differences. Panasonic developed a novel method of 'filtering' which splits the light so the photons are not absorbed, but redirected to the appropriate pixel. As a result, about twice the light reaches the sensor and almost no light is lost. Instead of RGGB, each block of 4 pixels receives Cyan, White + Red, White + Blue, and Yellow, and the RGB values can be interpolated."
Robotics

Making Robots Mimic the Human Hand 43

Posted by Soulskill from the call-me-when-they-can-play-stairway-to-heaven dept.
RougeFemme writes "As part of a research project to develop low-cost artificial hands, DARPA has developed a two-hand robot that can almost change a tire. Research has mastered grasping objects with robotic hands; the next objective is to manipulate the objects once grasped. Research also continues on a neural interface, a direct link between a robotic arm and the human brain. The ultimate goal of the research project is to develop prostethics and robotic arms for wider use, by reducing cost and improving dexterity and machine vision."
Robotics

Iranian Lab's Quadcopters To Rescue Swimmers 81

Posted by timothy from the when-skynet-is-nice dept.
mpthompson writes "Via RoboticsTrends' newsletter, RTS Lab in Tehran is developing Pars, which is an aerial rescue robot quadcopter designed to save potential drowning victims. The ship-based quadcopter responds instantly when alerted to potential victims in the ocean, locating them with thermal imaging sensors, and dispensing life preservers directly over them. The current prototype carries one life preserver, but they are working on a new model to carry three life preserver rings. Future models may dispense up to 15 self-inflating rings. A launching platform for use on ships has been designed, but more intriguing is an idea for a remote stand-alone launching platform. It's good to see innovative robot tech coming from a country that is not normally well covered in Western media."
Facebook

New Facebook-Branded Android Coming? 112

Posted by timothy from the oh-did-you-want-those-calls-chronologically? dept.
Earthquake Retrofit writes "The Register reports that 'Facebook has sent out invitations to an event at its Menlo Park headquarters next week that many believe will see the launch of a new, Facebook-branded smartphone...' I have lately become disillusioned with Google having so much power over my phone and the usual privacy concerns, so this announcement means I now have a choice. Oh, wait..."
Displays

Microsoft Mulling Smaller Windows 8 Tablets 145

Posted by timothy from the cut-an-eight-get-two-zeros dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft might want a piece of the mini-tablet market. The company has lowered the minimum screen resolution for Windows 8 tablets, from 1,366 x 768 pixels to 1024 x 768 pixels. "This doesn't imply that we're encouraging partners to regularly use a lower screen resolution," it wrote in an accompanying newsletter. "We understand that partners exploring designs for certain markets could find greater design flexibility helpful." As pointed out by ZDNet's Ed Bott—cited by other publications as the journalist who first noticed the altered guidelines—that lowered resolution "would allow manufacturers to introduce devices that are in line with the resolutions of the iPad Mini (1024 x 768) and the Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7 (both 1280 x 800)." Whatever the contours of the smaller-tablet market, it's certainly popular enough to tantalize any potential competitor. But if Microsoft plunges in, it will face the same challenges that confronted it in the larger-tablet arena: lots of solid competitors, and not a whole lot of time to make a winning impression. There are also not-inconsiderable hardware challenges to overcome, including processor selection and engineering for optimal battery life."
Earth

Internet's Energy Needs Growing Faster Than Efficiency Gains 158

Posted by timothy from the more-dilithium-obviously dept.
Electrons may not weigh anything, but it takes some heavy lifting, both literal and figurative, to point them in the right direction. Reader terrancem writes with this excerpt: "Energy efficiency gains are failing to keep pace with the Internet's rapid rate of expansion, says a new paper published in the journal Science. Noting that the world's data centers already consume 270 terawatt hours and Internet traffic volume is doubling every three years, Diego Reforgiato Recupero of the University of Catania argues for prioritizing energy efficiency in the design of devices, networks, data centers, and software development. Recupero highlights two approaches for improving efficiency: smart standby and dynamic frequency scaling or CPU throttling."
AI

How Could Swarms of Robots Help Humanity? 67

Posted by timothy from the terrible-secret-of-space dept.
ceview writes "Researchers at Sheffield Centre for Robotics have demonstrated that a swarm of 40 robots can carry out simple fetching and carrying tasks. This is done by grouping around an object and working together to push it across a surface. They believe that this could provide opportunities for us mere humans to harness such power to do all sorts of things like safety — what like catching falling workers perhaps? Youtube action here."
Data Storage

ZFS Hits an Important Milestone, Version 0.6.1 Released 99

Posted by samzenpus from the brand-new dept.
sfcrazy writes "ZFS on Linux has reached what Brian Behlendorf calls an important milestone with the official 0.6.1 release. Version 0.6.1 not only brings the usual bug fixes but also introduces a new property called 'snapdev.' Brian explains, 'The snapdev property was introduced to control the visibility of zvol snapshot devices and may be set to either visible or hidden. When set to hidden, which is the default, zvol snapshot devices will not be created under /dev/. To gain access to these devices the property must be set to visible. This behavior is analogous to the existing snapdir property.'"
Robotics

Giant Robotic Jellyfish Unveiled by Researchers 43

Posted by samzenpus from the thank-you-science dept.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, an anonymous reader writes in with news about a giant robot jellyfish. As if there weren't enough real jellyfish around to trigger our thalassophobia, researchers at Virginia Tech have created Cryo -- an eight-armed autonomous robot that mimics jelly movement with the help of a flexible silicone hat. The man-sized jellybot altogether dwarfs previous efforts, hence the upgrade from small tank to swimming pool for mock field tests. And unlike the passively propelled bots we've seen recently, Cryo runs on batteries, with the researchers hoping to better replicate the energy-efficient nature of jelly movement to eventually increase Cryo's charge cycle to months instead of hours. That's also the reason these robotic jellyfish are getting bigger -- because the larger they are, the further they can go."
Power

Solar Impulse Airplane To Launch First Sun-Powered Flight Across America 89

Posted by samzenpus from the guided-by-the-light dept.
First time accepted submitter markboyer writes "The Solar Impulse just landed at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California to announce a journey that will take it from San Francisco to New York without using a single drop of fuel. The 'Across America' tour will kick off this May when founders Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg take off from San Francisco. From there the plane will visit four cities across the states before landing in New York."

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